Brim: Fleeing from weather and cod

Brim’s freezer trawler Vigri is in port in Reykavík with a green weight of 600 tonnes of fish on board, after a stormy trip on Westfjords, east coast and south-western fishing grounds.

According to skipper Eythór A Scott, most of the trip was spent keeping clear of bad weather, and in some instances keeping clear of cod as this species wasn’t on the company’s wish list for this trip.

‘We started on the Hali grounds. That’s where we had some good fishing for saithe. We managed to head west to the Thveráll Gully and had some fishing for haddock, before an oncoming storm forced us to shelter in the Ísafjörður Deep. We spent 12 hours dodging there before the weather moderated. That opened a 12-hour window for us. There were two options open to us – to steam away as soon as possible and try for better conditions off the east, or stay there in the Ísafjörður Deep for the next week. So we opted to steam east.’

He said that there was good fishing for them off the east coast, starting on the Langanes Bank and shifting from there to Digranesflak. Cod formed the bulk of the catch in both areas.

‘The aim was to catch not too much cod, but we had to do something. We tried for haddock on the Tangaflak, but the main catch everywhere off the east coast was cod,’ he said, adding that they paid a return visit to the Westfjords on the way back.

‘We started on the Slétta Shallows and went westwards to the eastern corner of the Víkuráll Gully. There was fine fishing there, mostly golden redfish mixed with some cod and saithe.’

The last part of the trip was spent on south-western grounds.

‘We did well on golden redfish on the Eldey Bank and finished on the shallow part of the Skerja Deeps. That was mainly to see what the state of the golden redfish is like, and though we had some fish, the time we had there was far too short. We only managed around eight hours fishing,’ he said, and agrees with Örfirisey’s skipper Ævar Jóhannsson who was featured here earlier in the week, that the winter season is ready to start, with fish already heading for the banks and shallows.